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What are Misting Fans?

From the name itself, a misting fanis an electric fan that blows mists of water into the air. Its main purpose is to cool the area and improveair circulation. This kind of fan is commonly seen during football games and outdoor occasions, especially those held during hot humid days.

How do Misting Fans work?

To better understand how this innovative device works, one should first understand the concept of humidity. Humidity is the amount of water vapor in the air. Extremely high humidity usually occurs in hot dry climates; the hotter the weather, the higher the temperature, the more humid the atmosphere is. What this great appliance does is that they drop the temperature of the dry air by adding water vapor in the air and prolonging the cooling cycle– a process also known as evaporative cooling. This process, however, would only work in high-temperature areas. It could, therefore, be seen that this device would not be as efficient in low humidity places. A great utilization method of the misting fan is the proper placing of the fan in areas with high humidity, which would consequently result in a higher temperature reduction.

The aforementioned mist produced by the fan is done by forcing water droplets with the use of a high-pressure pump. These water droplets would be filtered first before passing a nozzle with very minute openings, making the droplets more miniscule. The resulting droplets would then form the mist being sprayed by the fans and would evaporate almost instantly upon contact with air, causing a cool breeze in the surroundings.

To make sure that misting fans would in fact produce a thin mist rather than spray droplets, misting fan system should operate with a pressure of at least 1000 psi. With the given pressure, the resulting droplets would be 3-5 micron-sized, perfect for the thin mist effect. There are also three types of misting systems: low, medium, and high pressure systems. The system needed would depend on the application of the misting fan.

When did Misting Fans start?

The idea for misting fan actually started from evaporative coolers, which are devices that lower temperature and cool the air through the evaporation of water. The first ever form of air cooling is the windcatcher made by the Persians. This device consists of wind shafts located on the roof of the building. These shafts would catch the wind, make it go through a subterranean water to lower its temperature, and release the cooled air into the building. When the people saw how effective the system is, they started innovating the process to enable the air to cool faster and in a more concentrated area.

The first misting system started back in the 1950s. It was first made to address the heat issues of the livestock industry. The animal owners grew tired of continuously spraying their animals with water to prevent heat strokes and therefore thought of ingenious way of putting an industrial fan to direct the sprinkles of water towards the animals.

Seeing how efficient the misting system was, the people developed ways to make the droplets finer. The concept of misting then spread to restaurants as it was a more effective way of cooling the place without affecting the temperature of the food. Gradually, the misting fan found a place in the residential settings.

What made the misting fan’s popularity spread is the convenience of setting it up. At the present time, misting fans do not come with a complicated installation process, unlike other cooling alternatives like air conditions. Like a regular fan, it could just be placed in a corner or moved by carrying it around.